Tunisia needs the Rule of Law

 In the words of the Tunisians themselves, a blogger there called Wled El Banlieue commented, "After 23 years of a single political voice in Tunisia, we're now discovering plurality. Let's learn democracy."

The Tunisian president, Ben Ali,  who was  in power since 1987 fled the country due to so much rioting. People hated him because he took away people's freedom of speech, movement and imposed a police state and he was very corrupt. It is astonishing how much Ben Ali himself and his family owned that should have belonged to the state.

This is why I think the rebuilding of Tunisia's economy and social fabric should be done according to  the principles of the Rule of Law.  The Rule of Law states that no one should be above the law. The Government needs to have only the authority that the public allows it to have. This is a golden opportunity for Tunisia to rebuild their society. Unemployment stands at 14%. The protest started when an umeployed graduate called Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself and died because he was making a living from selling fruit and vegetables on the streets and the police stopped him from doing so. He had no other way of getting an income and chose to kill himself instead. This was a drastic act of desperation which shows the huge gap that exists in Tunisia between the rich and the poor.

The Rule of Law is an excellent tool for equalising the gap between rich and poor in countries which are embracing democracy. There is always a danger if somebody is in power for too long like Ben Ali was.
I don’t think that somebody should be allowed to be a president for more that 8-10 years because then that person's power would become too much for them and they might think they are the equivalent to God and use their power wrongly. This happens in school when one person becomes very popular for a long time and then controls what everyone else does and wears.